On Sunday, Sunrisers Hyderabad suffered a humiliating 72-run defeat to Rajasthan Royals in Match 4 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 held at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Rajasthan batted first and thanks to a fiery 85-run partnership between Yashasvi Jaiswal (54 off 37 balls) and Jos Buttler (54 off 22 balls), followed by a brisk 55 off 32 balls from Sanju Samson, they piled up a score of 203/8.
Fazalhaq Farooqi returned excellent figures of 2/41 in his four overs for Sunrisers, while T Natarajan claimed 2/23 from his three overs. However, the other bowlers, apart from Adil Rashid, went for more than 10 runs per over.
Sunrisers’ troubles continued when Trent Boult bowled a double-wicket maiden in the very first over of their innings. Yuzvendra Chahal (4/17) led the other Rajasthan bowlers in reducing Sunrisers to 95/8 before an unbroken 37-run stand between Abdul Samad and Umran Malik helped them to reach a respectable total of 131/8.
Samad top-scored with a run-a-ball 32, while Mayank Agarwal (27 off 23 balls) was the only batsman from the top six who managed to score more than 15 runs. After a gap of four years, IPL cricket returned to Hyderabad, where the stadium was initially filled with orange but as the game began, the colours began to fade with pink and purple hues emerging.
Unfortunately for the Sunrisers, they conceded their highest powerplay tally as the Rajasthan openers gave them a drubbing. RR’s Samson got a fifty and they finished with a solid first innings score. In response, the in-form batters of SRH, Rahul Tripathi and Abhishek Sharma, fell for ducks to a ‘Boult from the pink’.
Harry Brook also had a forgettable IPL debut as the spinners tightened their stranglehold. Although Mayank Agarwal showed some promise, he perished against Chahal and the rest of the middle-order failed to contribute much. At one point, even crossing 100 seemed like a challenge, but some late hitting from the impact player Abdul Samad and Umran Malik got SRH to a respectable total.